Vegetarian Chili Paste is a versatile hot sauce that we put on the table and add to Thai food and Mexican food. The roasted heat and the balance of sweet, sour and salty are the key flavors of this chili paste. This is also a sauce that I add to my noodle soup to get extra zing.

I often make a big jar that will last me a month. This makes a good gift for a vegetarian (or anyone else) who loves hot food.

Method

Prepping

In a food processor, mince shallots (picture 2). And separately mince garlic (picture 3). We'll be frying each separately since they cook at a different rates. Garlic has a lot less water and cooks faster than shallots.

Cooking

Add ¼ cup of oil into a pan over medium low heat. Add the dried chili peppers and constantly turn each pepper over to prevent burning (picture 4). If the peppers are turning dark too quickly, lower the heat. After a couple of minutes, they should puff up and turn dark. Scoop out the peppers and set aside in a large, heat tolerant bowl.

Add the minced shallots into the same pan that you fried peppers. Add ½ cup of oil. Turn up the heat to high. Stir the shallots to mix with the oil. The oil should be hot and bubbling up. It will take about 10 minutes to get the shallots to turn light brown (picture 5). When it does, pour the shallots and oil into the same container with the fried peppers.

Add ½ cup of oil into the same pan. Lower the heat to medium, add minced garlic. Stir to mix the garlic with oil. The oil should be bubbling. After 4 minutes, the garlic should turn light brown (picture 6). Pour the oil and garlic into the bowl with other fried items (picture 7).

Add the fried peppers, shallots and garlic into the food processor. Add sugar, salt and tamarind paste into the food processor. Pulse until well mixed, about ½ a minute (picture 8). Pour the mixture into the pan that you used previously for frying ingredients.

Add the rest of the oil. Fry the chili paste over medium low heat (picture 9). Take a small piece and taste. You may want to add additional salt, sugar or tamarind paste or perhaps not. Over low heat, you can fry the chili paste as long as 15 minutes or as short as a couple of minutes. This final frying is to adjust the seasonings, let the flavors come together and kill off anything that can grow.